Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow
by Potter47
Summary: Forever is a promise rarely kept. PostHBP, HG, please review. WIP.
1. The Faceless Threat

Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow  
_ Potter47 _

Chapter One  
The Faceless Threat 

The day began like any other would—Lily Potter's eyes opened to the sound of her baby's crying. Sighing, she blinked a few times, and pushed herself up in bed, into a sitting position. She looked at her husband next to her for a moment, wondering if perhaps she should wake him, have him deal with Harry... but as she was already awake, she doubted she would be falling back into sleep once more, and even if she could, she was not sure she would want to.

Lily had been having terrible dreams, ever since the three of them had gone into hiding. Terrible, terrible dreams, most of which would end—or, sometimes, begin—with her baby dying in a flash of light. Letting out a breath, she stood and walked to Harry's crib, trying to clear her mind so that her baby wouldn't have such thoughts around him.

"What is it this time, Harry?" she said, leaning on the edge of the crib with a well-worn look on her face. "New nappy?"

Harry stopped crying a moment, as though he were going to try to say something, but then decided against it and began crying again.

"New nappy then," said Lily to herself, yawning. Her eyes felt very heavy, and she had to steady herself as she got a fresh nappy from beside the crib, and she seriously considered using magic this time—she hated the thought of it, but she was just so _tired_...

She resigned herself to doing it the Muggle way, the 'normal' way as she still thought of it, and Harry settled down a bit afterwards.

"You all right now, Harry?" Lily asked, and she yawned again while she said it, and Harry giggled at her. "Oh, you think it's funny that I'm tired, do you?" she said, mock-angrily. "Well then, I'll get more sleep from now on, just to be mean..."

Harry giggled again, and said in a very loud voice, "Wuv oo."

Lily smiled a very tired smile at him. "I love you too, Harry." She watched him a minute as his eyes closed again, and another minute even after he was asleep, and then she very thankfully let herself fall back onto her bed, curling up in the blanket in very much the same way that Harry was doing in his crib. Everyone had said she'd be getting more sleep eventually... she couldn't wait until 'eventually' actually arrived...

Miraculously, Harry stayed asleep for the rest of the night, or else Lily slept through his cries and James woke up instead... she didn't reckon the latter was very possible, though, because all James did was tickle Harry and try to get him to say 'Quidditch.' Those sorts of things were fine for daytime, but in the middle of the night they did nothing to put the boy back to sleep.

Lily glanced over through the bars of Harry's crib to see if he were still asleep now, but Harry was not there—James must have taken him out before Lily awoke. Groaning with the knowledge that she couldn't leave them alone together for too long, Lily tried futilely to fall back into slumber once again, but the sun was streaming in brightly through the windows even with the curtains pulled across them. And so, for as long as she could possibly manage, Lily just lay there with her eyes closed and tried to relax her mind.

"Lils!" came a very loud voice from the doorway much sooner than she would have liked. "Lils, Harry said it!"

Blinking rather difficultly with her face pressed against her pillow, Lily said, "What?" but it was muffled as well, so she rolled over and said it again.

"Harry said 'Quidditch'!" James cried, and then Lily looked at him and could see that he was out of breath from running up the stairs to her.

"Where is he?" she said urgently. "You left him downstairs, you prat?"

And, with surprising ability, she leaped from the bed and dashed past her husband through the doorway to find Harry balanced rather precariously on the bottom step, holding on to the railing with every fibre of his strength. He had a terrified look on his face, and his eyes were closed. Hesitantly, he raised his foot...

"Harry!" said Lily, and the little boy opened his eyes wide, looked up at her as she came rushing down the stairs, and—Lily could have sworn it—looked undoubtedly relieved.

She scooped him up into her arms, patting him on the back and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. "It's all right, baby, it's all right..."

She glared over Harry's shoulder at James, who looked very guilty and was still at the top of the stairs. "James Potter," she hissed while taking care to nonchalantly cover Harry's little ears, "you have some explaining to do."

James shrugged, not looking her in the eye. "Well... he _did _say 'Quidditch.' I thought you'd be excited." Lily narrowed her eyes at him, and looked down at Harry.

"Say 'Quidditch,' Harry," she said, and he didn't answer at first, but then he reached out for his foot and said, "Itch."

"See!" said James smugly—

"You idiot, he's saying his foot's itchy..." Lily turned Harry round slightly and removed his sock, inspecting the offending foot. "It doesn't look like a rash..." She scratched it lightly, and a look of bliss passed over the one-year-old's face. "There," she said. "That better?"

Harry said nothing, but he looked very satisfied. Lily carried him over to the living room and placed him down carefully on the floor with his toys. Then she rounded on James, who was standing in the doorway now.

"In the hallway a moment, _please_," she hissed, and he backed up as she walked towards him, making sure to keep an eye on Harry as she stepped through the archway into the hall.

When they were out of Harry's sight, Lily said, "_What were you thinking?_"

"I already said...I thought you would be excited."

"I couldn't care less about Quidditch, James Potter, you know that. But you know how Harry's been trying to climb the stairs!"

"I forgot—"

"You can't forget!" Lily closed her eyes a minute, and put her hand to her forehead. She spoke again in a calmer voice: "James, you just can't forget. What if something happens to Harry? What if he gets hurt?"

James swallowed visibly, and he looked down the hall towards the front door without even meaning to. Lily saw his glance, and tears began to form in her eyes.

"He has more than enough danger in his life already," she said, and she was too tired to stand on her own then, and she leaned in against her husband's chest. "You have to be more careful..."

"I will be, Lils," said James, tucking her head under his chin and holding her while he tried desperately not to look at the door and the outside world. "Nothing's going to happen to Harry. Well, except potty training. You know how much I hate changing nappies..."

Lily chuckled into his shirt, and he smiled. "Everything's going to turn out all right, isn't it, James?" she said.

"Of course it is," he assured her. "We've got nothing to worry about. They'll never suspect Wormtail, not in a thousand years—"

"Shh," said Lily, as though even now the Dark Lord was listening. "Just don't mention it."

"Right," said James, nodding.

They stood leaning on each other for a while, a very long time, and Harry was quiet in the next room, a good quiet, a quiet that Lily somehow could tell meant that he was behaving and not doing something he wasn't supposed to.

"Hey, Lils," said James then into her ear. "You know what this reminds me of?"

"Do I want to? It's going to be something stupid, isn't it?"

"No, no," said James. "It reminds me of our wedding. Just the way we're standing like this. If we were...moving a bit." And he took a step backwards, slowly, taking her with him. "And there was music—" He started to hum a slow tune, and started walking her round the hallway, into the kitchen, back out and into the living room, like a slow dance, but soon there he stopped humming and she started moving by herself, and they were dancing very slowly to the silence of the house.

And then Harry laughed because they were dancing with no music all round him, and it was funny. And then Lily laughed, and James, because it _was _sort of funny, if you thought about it, and then they were laughing harder and harder and James sidled—purposefully, in Lily's mind—to the couch so that he toppled backwards onto it with her atop him.

"I liked that wedding," he said then, grinning. "Best one I ever had."

"Me too," she said, and she kissed him, and Harry giggled again and so did they.

"Love is a funny thing, isn't it?" said James then, and he almost sounded pensive for a moment. "Sometimes we even get the joke."

Lily nodded on his chest, and then she nodded off.

It was very dark in the room then. Lily couldn't see. And... and James wasn't there. Hadn't she been lying on him? But now she wasn't, she was on the couch alone, and it was dark, and Harry wasn't giggling any more, and she couldn't feel him at all.

She stood, and she didn't feel tired anymore. But it was so dark that she couldn't see, even with her eyes open, so it almost _felt _as though she were so tired that she had stuffed her face in a pillow. That was odd.

And then she saw a light, and it was coming from the hallway. The archway from the living room was lit by a bright white light, and she walked towards it—

"Harry!" she cried when she saw him. He was dangling from the railing, halfway up the endless flight of stairs, and at the top was a man that at first glance would have been James, but then it wasn't because James was next to Lily now, just as panicked as she was.

The man at the top of the stairs was laughing, which was odd because he didn't have a mouth. _That _wasn't particularly odd, though, because he didn't have a face at all, so why should he have a mouth?

This faceless man was laughing, and laughing, and then he was calling for Harry, calling for him to join him at the top of the stairs.

But then Harry fell, not down the stairs, but _through _the stairs, and he was trapped under the stairs and Lily and James were running after him, running up the stairs to where he had fallen, but they could not reach him, the stairs just kept going and going and going and going and the could never reach the hole...

And they never would, because the faceless man was cursing them now.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!_"

And James was dead, he was dead, he was dead, but Lily was still alive, she had to get to Harry, she had to, she just had to—

Jets of light followed Lily as she ran back down the stairs the way she came. It was much shorter to the bottom than she would have thought. And then she ran around the staircase to the little door on the side to the closet that James kept his broomstick in and she kept her Hoover, and she threw open the door, and there was Harry, laying on the floor.

"HARRY!"

Was he dead, or just asleep? Lily couldn't tell, and she would never know because the man, the faceless man fell through the hole in the stairs and blocked her way to her son, and he shouted the Killing Curse again and it hit her in the chest and she screamed and she woke up and she screamed again, for real this time.

"Lily, what's wrong?" said James urgently from his place above (below?) her on the couch. "Did you have a nightmare? Were you...asleep? I hadn't noticed—"

"Nothing," said Lily, shaking her head. "Just...yeah, a nightmare. Nothing more."

She turned her head round and looked at Harry on the floor. He wasn't playing with any of the toys in front of him, he was _looking _at her in this strange, indescribable way... as though he understood what she had seen, as though he had seen it too...

But that was nonsense. Harry was only a year old.

"God, I'm overtired," said Lily, shaking her head. "I—I have to go to bed. Don't let Harry near the stairs."

And the words had such a meaning to her that she hadn't meant to mean... they had slipped off her tongue from reflex, telling James not to do something stupid he'd done before, just what she always said, but... but this was so very different in her mind that she could barely stand. Or perhaps that was because James was holding her so tightly.

"I won't," he said, but he was looking at her peculiarly. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"No, I said, I'm overtired. I've got to go to bed. Wake me up if you need something—"

"Don't worry, I won't," said James. Lily blinked and realised that that hadn't been what she said, that had been what she wanted to say, and he had heard it anyway.

And then she stood, but she before she could leave, she said to him, "I love you, James. You know that, right?"

James laughed. "Oh, and here I was thinking you'd married me for my Quidditch skills—"

"You know that, right?" said Lily again, forcibly, and James was taken aback.

"Yeah, Lils. Of course I know that. I love you too."

"Wuv oo," said Harry in a very grave, sincere little voice.

"I love you too, Harry," said Lily, and she blew him a kiss. "Mummy's going to bed. She'll see you in a bit."

And with that she left. She walked out into the hall, and (carefully and hesitantly) put her foot on the bottom stair—she made a point to feel every step fully before stepping on it, the whole way up. When she lay in her bed, she fell asleep instantly, and her sleep was mercifully dreamless.

"Lily, wake up!" said James urgently, and Lily blinked awake. How long had she been asleep, she wondered? But it didn't matter, not anymore, not with the look on James's face.

"What happened?" she said, sitting up in bed. "Where's Harry?"

"He's right here, he's right here," said James, and his hand was shaking—the hand with his wand in it, she noticed, because she noticed he had his wand out. Harry was crying silently next to Lily on the bed.

"Careful—" she said, "it's sparking—"

And James lifted the wand vertical so as to not spark onto the bedspread, but he didn't really seem to hear her anyway.

"He's here, Lily. Voldemort's here. Take Harry and go! I'll try to keep him from the back, from the back door, get to my broom under the stairs. Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run!"

"You said that already..." said Lily, standing up as best she could, trying to steady herself.

A crash was heard, and a cackle of laughter. "Run!" said James once again, and he ran out the door, wand in hand, turned on his heel at the foot of the stairs, and ran for the front of the house.

Lily took Harry in her arms and ran herself, ran towards the stairs, but she had to steady herself once again and take a breath. She didn't want to fall...

Somehow, holding onto Harry the whole way down helped her reach the bottom, helped her turn, helped her fling open the cupboard with the broom—"

But before she could grab it, there he was, there _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_ was, there Voldemort was, cackling madly, and the horror hit her that James had to be dead, because Voldemort was advancing on her. And she could see his face now, and it looked...terrible, much worse than a head with no face at all...

She turned tail and ran back up the stairs, not knowing what she planned to do, how she planned to escape from up there, but knowing that she had to run. That was the last thing James had told her to do, to run, and she would do it even if, as it certainly seemed, it would be the last thing she ever did.

And she stumbled a bit as she reached the middle of the stairs—for a minute she thought she was falling through—and Voldemort was right there.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" he shouted, but he missed—almost as though he hadn't even _meant _to hit her yet... the jet of light went over her shoulder and hit the wall, which caught flame instantly.

Lily kept running, kept running, kept running all the way to their bedroom, and she slammed the door behind her. She held Harry in her arms, kissed the top of his head, murmured frenzied ramblings about how everything would be all right, and somehow, he did not cry.

The door burst open behind then in a great flash of light. Lily could hear the crackle of flames from out in the hall, overtaking the carpet and wall hangings. She couldn't bare to look, and she knew that Harry shouldn't either. She put him down in his crib, which she had been just in front of, and the most random thought in the world wandered into her mind at that moment, when Lord Voldemort was standing behind her, cackling along with the flames: _How long's he had this nappy on for? He'll need a new one soon_—

She spun round to face Voldemort.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now!"

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"

More laughing; more cackling.

"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy—"

Lord Voldemort laughed and cursed, Lily screamed and fell, and Harry Potter sat in his crib, staring as a bright green light shone through the thin material blocking him from the outside world.

He heard a noise as his mother fell to the ground, but he didn't know what it was. It sounded like his daddy had pulled his mummy onto the couch and onto him, and that was the thud, but Harry knew that that couldn't be it...

A tall, robed figure shadowed over young Harry in his crib, and Harry looked up at him, looked at his wand, which was right in Harry's face. Harry wasn't used to seeing wands in his face, because his mummy and daddy always kept their wands away from him, just to be on the safe side.

And then the figure said something that didn't sound very good, and a bright light shone right in Harry's eyes and then it seemed to turn right round and hit the robed figure who had cast it. A very loud scream issued partly from the figure's mouth, partly from the air around him, and Harry felt a prickling on his forehead.

It hurt. Harry began to cry.

The figure was gone, and a strange sound was getting louder and louder, the sound of the flames outside in the doorway. They didn't come anywhere near Harry though, nowhere near his crib, so he didn't even feel the sudden heat in the room.

A long while later, after he had nearly cried himself out and really, really wanted his mummy to pick him up to change his nappy, a giant man entered the room, and the fire was gone but so was the whole house, except for Harry and his crib. They had been on the second floor, and somehow now they found themselves on the first.

The giant took Harry out of his crib and held him very gently which Harry didn't know if he expected. They hurried away from the house and there was a man that Harry couldn't see, because he was so wrapped up in the giant's arms.

The man sounded familiar to Harry, but he couldn't hear very well. Something about "Let me take him," and "Dumbledore," and "Motorbike," but Harry didn't know what any of these things meant.

Then the strangest thing happened—Harry rose up into the air in the giant's arms, and they were flying, flying, flying, up in the air. And then after a long, long time flying—they were flying very slow, it seemed—Harry fell asleep.

When he woke up, he couldn't remember what had happened, and he was somewhere he had never seen before, and he didn't feel very good because he still needed a new nappy.

And he missed his mummy and daddy, because they weren't there.

_ To Be Continued... Please Review _


	2. The Letter from Someone

Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow  
_ Potter47 _

Chapter Two  
The Letter from Someone

It was a dark day in London. A very dark day indeed. It was only the mid-afternoon, but it felt like the middle of the night.

Vernon Dursley shivered as he waited there, feeling more than a little foolish (not for the first time) to be staring impatiently at the wall between platforms nine and ten. He muttered under his breath about wizards and magic and if someone were to happen by (which was extremely rare—Vernon felt he was the only person there, though he couldn't tell for the fog) he would silence himself immediately without even thinking.

It seemed Vernon had stood hours in the fog, wind, and cold of that summer day before, finally, a young boy walked out of the wall with his mother's hand in his own. A tiny girl with her parents towering above her came through next. Vernon let out a breath of relief, knowing that the boy would be there soon and they could be back in the comfort of Number Four, Privet Drive, and Potter could fix the heating vent in the kitchen...

Vernon frowned as the throngs of students and families emerged from the wall. _Where is he?_ thought Vernon. It was taking much longer than he would have liked, and his thoughts were turning in directions he would have preferred they wouldn't.

He was thinking about what that wizard had said, last July. About Potter coming-of-age. Part of Vernon was happy about this, deeply happy, because it meant that he would be rid of the boy before long. The rest of him, though... he didn't like the idea of Harry Potter being able to do whatever he liked with a wand. Thoughts of pig-tails and abnormally large tongues flashed through his mind, and he shivered once more.

And then Vernon felt a presence beside him, and looked to his left—

"Hello, Mr Dursley," said the man standing there. It was... it was that red-haired lunatic. That _Weasley_. "I take it you're waiting for Harry?"

Vernon muttered under his breath for a moment, and then said loudly and clearly, "Yes. But this is it, the last time. Then he's your problem."

Mr Weasley blinked. "My problem? What do you mean?"

"You and the rest of your _people_," said Vernon with no lack of dislike. "He's coming of age, you know, seventeen, right? So all you freaks are going to have to deal with his temper-tantrums and screaming fits—"

"Temper tantrums?" said Mr Weasley incredulously. "Screaming fits? Are you sure we're speaking of the same Harry, here? I'm talking about the one that's lived with you since he was a baby—"

"Who else would I mean?" said Vernon, and then he smiled smugly, all thoughts of a possible negative side of Potter's departure departing themselves. "Finally, my family will be left alone... no more... _wizards _showing up in the middle of the night attacking us with Razmerty's Mead or whatever it was... no more creatures landing on the living room carpet..."

"My goodness, you certainly are a strange person, Mr Dursley," said Mr Weasley, and Vernon nearly laughed aloud—_He _was the weirdo? Oh, sure..._sure! _"Part of me had hoped the fireplace incident had simply triggered your senses a bit strongly..."

"Oh, don't think I've forgotten about _that, _Weasley!"

"I hadn't particularly," said Mr Weasley, and his friendly tone was a bit less so. "Don't worry, though, Mr Dursley. I'm sure Harry will be of no trouble to any of us."

Vernon made a sound of disbelief, and Mr Weasley took a long step away from him.

"Ah, here they are," Mr Weasley said.

And so they were—two red-heads, a brown-haired girl, and an all-too-familiar black-haired boy had emerged from the barrier, with the red-haired woman that was Mr Weasley's wife.

"Potter!" Vernon called. "We're going _right now, _I don't want any incidents this year—"

"Hang on, Uncle Vernon," said Potter, and he had a very strange, almost grown-up sound in his voice that he had never had before, and Vernon didn't like it one bit.

"I will not hang on!"

Potter didn't budge, though, and he stood resolutely with his little friends, all of whom were at least Vernon's height, except the red-haired girl.

"Er, Mum, Dad," said the red-haired boy, what was his name? "Hermione and I are—"

His parents stood stock still, and the mother interrupted him. "Finally!" she said. "Oh, Ron, I knew it would happen sooner or later, congratulations!"

Ron furrowed his brow. "What? You knew—how would you—con_gratulations?_"

"Oh, Mrs Weasley," said the brown-haired girl, "that's not what he was going to say. He was going to say that we're going with Harry this year, to his aunt and uncle's house—"

"WHAT!" shouted Vernon then, throwing caution and his will not to be noticed to the unrelenting wind in his rage. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE GOING WITH HIM!"

"Do be quiet, Mr Dursley," said Mr Weasley reproachfully. "You don't want to draw attention to yourself, do you?"

"Don't worry, Uncle Vernon," said Harry with that same unnatural tone. "It'll only be for a little while. Dumbledore's orders." He spoke very tightly, if that is a way to speak, which Vernon reckoned it was not.

"Dumbled—Dumbledore's—I want a word with this Dumbledore!"

"You had one," said Harry oddly. "Last summer."

Vernon bit his lip, thinking back. "Oh. That was Dumbledore, was it?"

"I thought you knew that."

"Whatever. But they are not coming into my house!"

"Well then we'll sleep out in the garden," said Ron. "But we're going with him."

"Ron, are you serious?" said Mrs Weasley. "But Bill's wedding—"

"We'll be there for that, don't worry," said the brown-haired girl, Hermione—_Dreadful name, isn't it?_

Mrs Weasley turned to the red-haired girl. "I suppose you'll want to go with them?"

And there was a strange, determined look on her daughter's face. "No. No, I'm coming with you." She was speaking to her mother, but she was looking at Harry.

"Well, that's good news, then," said Vernon.

And everyone kept talking and talking to everyone else and Vernon found it very difficult to follow everything. Somehow that he did not understand, he somehow managed to be following Harry and both his friends to the car. Vernon could not help thinking, the whole way home, how on earth he was going to explain them to Petunia and Dudley.

——

Harry Potter looked through the window of the Dursleys' car, watching the houses go by on the other side of the glass, quickly and quickly and slower and slower as they neared Number Four, Privet Drive.

None of the car's occupants felt particularly like breaking the silence. Ron was looking between Harry and Hermione, and then out the window, biting the inside of his cheek. Hermione was watching the road in front of them. And Uncle Vernon was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel while nibbling on his fat lips.

Out the window, Harry saw a woman step outside of her house in a bathing suit, towel in hand, as though about to sunbathe. She looked up at the misty sky, shivered quite visibly, and turned back inside.

The car finally pulled into the Dursleys' drive, and Harry sprang out of it in a moment—Hermione, who had been in the middle, climbed out after him, and Ron tried to get the lock open on his door without much success.

"Pull it up, Ron," said Hermione, and Ron did, and he got out. She smirked at him.

"What?" he said defensively. "It's different from our old one—"

"_What _on _earth_—!"

Harry looked round at the front porch of Number Four. Standing upon it was Aunt Petunia, her face red as a Quaffle and her eyes as large.

"They forced me, Petunia, I had no _choice_—" said Vernon, wringing his hat and glaring at the students.

"Hello, Mrs Dursley," said Hermione politely, extending her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger, and—"

"GET AWAY FROM MY HOU—"

"Dumbledore's orders, Aunt Petunia," said Harry, and Petunia was silenced immediately, although she clearly did not that wish to be so. Her lips wriggled round unsatisfied on her face, as though more words (perhaps less pleasant ones) were struggling to escape.

"Get in, before the neighbours see—" she finally said, and they did just that—the screen door hung open a moment after the lot had cleared inside, swung round in the wind a minute, and slammed shut with a clang.

Petunia 'ushered' them 'welcomingly' into the living room, and 'graciously offered' to make tea, before disappearing into the kitchen; her husband seemed torn between following or staying to make sure the teenagers didn't break anything.

Harry's large cousin, Dudley entered the room, then, and was about to inquire after the location of his favourite fork when he saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting awkwardly on the sofa, with Vernon in the seat opposite. No one was looking at each other.

"You got a _girlfriend_, Potter?" he said, looking Hermione up and down. "No surprise she's so ugly—"

"Hey!" exclaimed Ron.

"I didn't mean _you_," said Dudley condescendingly, but then a light lit in his fat little head: "Unless..." And then he looked between Ron and Harry. "PIERS WAS RIGHT!" Dudley exclaimed. "I'm gonna go call him—"

"Ugh," said Hermione, her arms crossed and watching distastefully as Dudley turned tail. "I know you said he was bad—" And then she glanced at Vernon. "No offence, Mr Dursley—"

He ignored her, and hadn't heard her comment in the first place, so it didn't really matter. He was trying his best to pretend none of them were there—perhaps he was imagining it was still springtime, and they were all off at school, and he and Petunia had the house to themselves and everything was _normal..._

Hermione muttered: "How long do we have to stay here, exactly?"

"Maybe a night or two," said Harry, looking around the room; something was strange. Perhaps it was the feeling that he would be leaving soon, never to return. "The wedding's Saturday, right?"

"Yes," said Hermione, nodding.

"Do we have to stay out here with them?" Ron said, looking at Vernon, who was holding his hands over his ears and rocking back and forth slightly. "They're barmy, aren't they?"

"No, let's, uh," Harry began, and then: "We'll go in my room, instead."

He stood first, almost falling back onto the couch for lack of balance (he didn't know why).

By the stairs, Hermione stopped short, staring in an almost... an almost 'glazed' way.

"What?" said Harry, who had a foot on the first step.

"It's, uh," Hermione said, not moving. "Um. So that's it."

She was looking at the door of the cupboard under the stairs, and it was strange—the cupboard seemed almost _legendary_ now, perhaps more so to Hermione, who had never seen it before—Harry had largely ignored it since he'd gotten his own room.

"Yeah," said Harry, nodding. Hermione didn't move. "It's really not a big deal," he added, and Hermione seemed to jump slightly, as if out of a trance, and followed the others up the stairs.

Just as they sat down in various places in Harry's room—Harry on the bed, Ron on the floor, and Hermione in the chair by the desk—suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping at the window.

There was a large, black owl—it had a strange, malnourished look to it, as though it was neither given food nor had time to look for itself. Harry could have sworn he saw the bird look over his shoulder twice on the way to the window—when he opened it, the bird flew not to his shoulder, but to Hermione's.

"Me?" Hermione asked, taking the envelope from its leg—as she slid her finger under the seal to open it, the owl narrowed its large eyes at her, as though assuring she would read it properly. Then, apparently satisfied, it dug its claws lightly into her shoulder and took off again out the window in a graceful motion.

"Who's it from?" said Ron, moving over next to Hermione's chair to peer over the edge of the letter.

"It... doesn't say," said Hermione in an odd voice, almost distractedly—it was quite clear that she had answered the question without even really hearing it in the first place, for she was far too busy taking in the words on the page.

"What does it say?" Harry asked—he was trying to close the window again, but it was sticking terribly. Eventually he gave it up and told himself he'd do it later.

Hermione was still immersed, and didn't answer this time. Her head jumped up then, and she began to read it again from the beginning. Ron tried to pull it down so he could see too, but she pulled it away again.

"It's my letter, Ron," said Hermione. Her lips began to form the words as she read them; open, close, open. Then, finally, she lowered the letter to her lap.

"It's a warning," she said to Ron and Harry in a strange voice that was very different from her odd voice from a moment ago. "It's... someone's telling us to leave at once, to leave Privet Drive."

"What?" said Ron.

"But how do they know we're even here?" Harry said, which was a better question.

"How did they know _I'm_ here?" said Hermione, which was the best of all. "Why didn't they send it to _you?_"

"Let me see it," said Harry, and she handed it over. He read it through twice—the writing was vaguely familiar. Harry read aloud:

"The Dark Lord is planning an attack on Number Four, Privet Drive, for the evening of the Third of July. If there are no deterrents in this owl's flight, you should receive this message on the Second. You and those around you must evacuate by tomorrow morning at the _latest_—" This word was underlined rather hastily, so that the mark nearly went through the letters, instead of beneath them. "Potter's relatives as well. Bring everything of importance, and do not attempt a Portkey."

Harry's brow furrowed. "It's not even signed," he said.

"I _told _you it wasn't signed," said Hermione, and she took—snatched, almost—the letter back, and reread it once again. Her eyes moved side-to-side so quickly that it was a wonder she didn't get dizzy.

"That's a trap if I ever saw one," said Ron surely. "The Death Eaters are trying to lure us out or something, don't you reckon?"

"That's probably what it is," said Harry, nodding.

Hermione seemed unsure as she surfaced once again. "But perhaps they want us to _think _it's a trap," she said, "so that we stay here like sitting ducks?"

"That's an idea too," said Harry, nodding.

"Or it could be real," Hermione added. "It could actually be from someone with inside information, to warn us—"

"But it'd have to be a Death Eater, then," said Ron. "And it said the Dark Lord, right? So it's _got _to be a Death Eater, doesn't it? I'd rather not bet on it being a _friendly _Death Eater, would you?"

"But Professor—" Hermione began to interject, but closed her mouth firmly, looking embarrassed. Harry knew what she was going to say: _But Professor Snape called him the Dark Lord, and_— Old habits die hard, it seemed; Hermione would probably defend Snape for ever, on instinct, even though she didn't want to and knew he was an evil murdering git.

Harry had a better response: "It's not as though a defecting Death Eater's unheard of, though," he reminded them. "RAB called him the Dark Lord, so—"

But then he stopped, and his eyes widened, and Ron's eyes widened, and Hermione's as well.

"It couldn't be him," said Ron slowly, "...could it?"

"I thought he was dead," said Hermione.

Harry reached into his robe pocket, his fingers almost shaking in sudden excitement—he took out the fake Horcrux, and then RAB's note, which he'd kept on his person ever since Dumbledore's death, and unfolded it quickly, laying it next to the other note, the new one. Harry had thought before that the handwriting had been familiar on this note, and now it was clear—

—that it wasn't RAB.

The writing was nothing alike in the least. It was quite deflating, really.

"There are spells to change your handwriting," offered Hermione, also sounding quite disappointed.

"But why would RAB want to hide who he was from us?" said Harry. "We already knew about—"

"But he doesn't _know _we know, does he?"

That was true.

"What are the chances, though," said Ron, "that we find out about this mysterious guy from that note in the fake Horcrux, and then he just shows up for real, a couple weeks later? I mean, talk about a coincidence?"

That was also true.

Harry was very indecisive right now—he couldn't make up his mind whether he thought the warning was truthful or not, whether it was from RAB or not, whether the writing was familiar or not (had he just _imagined_ it?), and a million other things. Usually he could at least know what he _believed _to be true, but... not anymore.

"I think the more important thing," Harry said, "is just to decide what to do. Stay or go, I mean?"

"How can we know?" said Hermione and there was this quite hopeless tone in her voice that Harry didn't like at all.

They were silent a very, very long time. The letter was passed around wordlessly, so that they could all read it again and again and before any of them had said another word, it was already midnight.

Harry blinked as he looked at the clock—where had the time gone?

Ron was slouched over against the side of the bed, snoring softly. Hermione seemed too tired to shut her eyes, actually, and so she just continued to stare at the words on the paper. Harry himself blinked a few times more and thought, _Well, we're not going anywhere tonight, apparently_. He stood—when had he sat on the ground?—and nudged Hermione. Her eyes wavered a moment before focusing on him.

"Yes?" she said.

"Are you planning on sleeping in the chair all night?" he said, and she finally managed a blink or two, and the letter fell from her hands, hitting the floor at an angle. She yawned, then, stretching her back muscles slightly, and said, "Where _should _I go?"

"You could have the bed," Harry offered, "I'll sleep on the floor—"

"Oh, thank—_no_, Harry, it's _your_ bed, _I'll_ take the floor," she said, coming slightly to her senses. Yawning again, she stood hesitantly as though her limbs were numb from sitting so long, and let herself collapse on the carpet beside Ron. "Why am I so tired all of a sudden?" she murmured sleepily, before finally letting her eyelids droop—just before she could fall asleep, she jumped slightly, eyes open again, and pointed vaguely towards her chair.

"Could I have the..." she began, but sort of slurred. "Could I have my letter?"

Harry picked it up off the floor and handed it to her—she took it gratefully, curling a bit as though the paper was a teddy bear, and she was asleep in an instant.

Harry turned off the lamp and laid down himself on the bed, watching the ceiling and feeling a bit better than he had just a few minutes—hours?—before. His eyes drifted closed—

And he had the strangest dream. It started out familiar, like all his dreams of late, with Dumbledore's body careening off the top of the tower, Harry unable to move, to do anything... and then Harry himself jumped off after him, landing in the Department of Mysteries, and Dumbledore was there too, falling through the veil on one side while Sirius fell through on the other—if it had been an ordinary veil, they surely would have clunked heads, but it wasn't so they didn't and then they were gone, and that was where Harry usually woke up.

But this time, unlike all times before, Harry still stood in the Department of Mysteries, and he could see the veil settle back into place on the dais, and he walked over to it, reaching an arm out, stroking the fabric—it was soft, like Ginny's hair, or like a cat's fur. And then Harry pushed the curtain aside, and he could see through it.

He stepped in.

Harry stood in the graveyard, outside the Riddle House, where he had stood at the end of his fourth year, where he had seen Cedric killed. (Harry had not dreamt of _this _in a very long time.)

He was not watching the murder this time, or the rebirth, but the duel between himself and Voldemort, the great cage of light, with all the Death Eaters spread in a circle round. Harry was on the outside now, and it was almost like looking into a prison, and if he could he would have grasped the golden bars and leaned through, but he couldn't.

The Death Eaters were jeering as the bead of golden light moved along, back and forth between Harry—not dream-Harry—and Lord Voldemort, back and forth again and then it _touched _and the figures began emerging from Voldemort's wand, just as Harry remembered.

Cedric, and then the others, and then _his parents_, and as soon as Harry saw his own parents they weren't in the graveyard at all, they were in a comfortable-looking living room that looked vaguely familiar to Harry, and they were dancing.

Round and round and round and round and Harry began to hear fairground music in his head, and the beautiful dance turned mocking, and they were leering at him and then there was a flash and they were gone and Harry was sitting bolt upright in his bed.

It was still dark in the room, and Ron and Hermione both still slept peacefully on the floor, by the side of the bed, and Ron had sort of fallen over onto her shoulder—presently, she was sleepily pushing him off, without much luck.

Harry closed his eyes for a minute and opened them again, and swung his legs off the empty side of the bed. He felt an odd heaviness in his bones, a sort of weight that wouldn't go away. Standing, he very nearly toppled back on the bed, but managed to steady himself.

He glanced back at the clock on his bedside table—it was three fifty-seven.

Harry walked over to the window and peered outside at the foggy street, his eyes adjusting to the glare of the streetlamps. He had a sort of crick in his neck, he now noticed, and it hurt when he attempted to turn his head so as to see the stars.

Suddenly, Harry didn't know why he had stood up. He was still tired—dreadfully so, as when one wakes up after a little bit of sleep, it tends to be even more tiring than just staying up.

He lay back down and closed his eyes, hoping for, perhaps, a _good _dream to overcome him... but as it were, no dreams overcame him at all, and he couldn't quite tell if he fell asleep after that or merely remained awake, staring at the ceiling.

Morning came, eventually, announced by a loud scream from Uncle Vernon:

"Potter! GET DOWN HERE NOW!"

Harry blinked a few times, stood, and looked down at Ron and Hermione—Hermione was leaning on _him_, now, in her sleep, and he was trying to turn to regain his arm while still likely dreaming about Quidditch or something like that.

Harry opened his door, and walked down the stairs carefully, as he wasn't fully awake yet. Uncle Vernon was at the foot of the stairs, looking dreadfully annoyed and as though he longed for nothing more than to slug Harry as he approached.

"You have a... visitor," Vernon said, and for one terrible, terrible moment Harry thought of the letter, of the warning, and thought that this was it, that the Death Eaters were attacking—but his fears were unfounded, as when he reached the front hall there stood not a Death Eater but—

"Professor McGonagall?" Harry said, furrowing his brow. She looked absolutely dreadful, more care-worn than he had ever seen her before, even just after Dumbledore had died. "What are you—"

"Hello, Harry," she said, and just as she said it Harry felt footsteps behind him—Hermione was coming down the stairs, Ron behind her.

"Has something happened, Professor?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Oh, no," said McGonagall in what attempted to be a reassuring voice. Then she blinked. "Well, _yes_, actually, something has happened, but it's not something _bad_, per sé..."

"What is it?" said Ron, not-quite-politely in his not-quite-wakefulness, but McGonagall didn't seem to mind.

"The governors have just met," she said, attempting to sound very official and prim, and failing as her eye twitched horribly, "and they have agreed to allow Hogwarts to be reopened—"

"That's excellent!" said Hermione, then. "That's good news—"

"I hadn't finished," said McGonagall sadly. "They have agreed to allow Hogwarts to be reopened, under the condition that you, Harry, will return next year. They feel that your presence would help to ease the—"

Harry's feelings must have shown on his face, for she stopped and said:

"I _know _that you don't want to, Harry, we've all heard—" Harry glared at Ron and Hermione, who tried to look innocent, "but you must think of all of the _other _students. How would you feel if your hero suddenly disappeared, just when you felt he was most needed?"

Harry was silent, and did not really want to hear any arguments about his decision not to return, as he did not want to be convinced otherwise.

"I can't go back," he finally said, and he sounded rather listless. "I just can't."

Harry watched as a fresh wrinkle formed upon McGonagall's forehead.

"I had been... worried you'd say that..."

Harry noticed that McGonagall's hair was almost standing on end, like a cat's does when agitated.

"I urge you to reconsider," she said, finally. "The final decision must be presented to the board of governors on the first of August, so as to leave time to prepare if, in any event, the school does reopen..."

She continued talking, perhaps to him and perhaps to herself, as she turned round and opened the door, and even still until the very moment she lost the human voice box as she turned into a cat. Then she looked up at him, meowed sadly, and walked out the door.

"Harry," said Hermione from beside him. "Maybe you should reconsider—"

"Don't," warned Harry, and made to go up the stairs—he was stopped, however, by Vernon:

"So your blasted school's closing for good, is it?" he said in a horrible, superior way. "I knew it couldn't last long, what with you wreaking havoc ten months a year—"

"JUST SHUT UP!" Harry shouted then, unable to control himself. "Why do you have to say something like that _every time _you talk? It's bloody annoying, and I thought you realised I'm coming of age this year—shouldn't you be nice to me?"

Vernon sort of quivered a moment, before getting up his nerve: "Your aunt and I have put a roof over your head for _sixteen years,_ boy, and this is how you—"

"Just shut the hell up," said Harry, and then he looked to Ron and Hermione. "Could you possibly just.. hex him, or something? You won't get in trouble—"

Ron looked rather excited by the prospect—Vernon terrified, of course—but Hermione was, unfortunately, the voice of reason:

"We can't hex him," she said. "We have to bring him with us."

"WHAT?"

It hadn't just been Vernon who had screamed—it was also Harry, Ron, and both of the other Dursleys, who had just walked into the room from the kitchen.

"The letter, remember?" said Hermione. "We have to take them with us, in case there's an attack—"

"I am not taking the Dursleys to find the Horcruxes—" Harry began, bewildered that she would suggest such a thing—

"Of course not," she said, "just to the Burrow, until we can determine the authenticity of the note. If the house is attacked, it's legitimate, and we have an informant in the Death Eaters—"

"I AM NOT LEAVING MY HOUSE!" said Uncle Vernon, who looked quite infuriated that he was being referred to as a mere complication.

"Well, he doesn't want to go," said Ron, feigning disappointment. "Guess we'll have to just leave 'em—"

"Wait!" said Aunt Petunia of all people, who had been shivering by the doorway, unbeknownst to anyone, even Dudley who was just beside her. All heads turned to her now—she blinked, having been put on the spot so suddenly, and then said: "We're going with them Vernon." Then, a second later: "You paid the house insurance this month, yes?"

_

To Be Continued... Please Review.

_


	3. Chapter 3 Cookie

_Author's Note: _Hey... what do you know, a cookie. Cookies are good eats, aren't they...?

I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to update this. If you follow my other stories you'll know that my computer crashed awhile ago, and I lost a great deal of writing... including the nearly-completed third chapter of this story, as well as the entire plan for its plotline. Since then I've gone through an awful lot of stuff that's prevented me from revisiting the story... but now, I'm essentially, and I hate to say it, starting from scratch... You never know, maybe it'll turn out better than it would've before.

Please review... I can't guarantee when the rest of this chapter'll be up, but I wanted to post this cookie so you'd all know I was still alive, and that this story won't fall by the wayside and into oblivion... coughAuguriesofInnocencecough... Heh, in typing this author's note it struck me how great it would be if someone would come up with an actual Unbreakable Cookie... well, at least one that wouldn't crumble so easily when you don't want it to. That'd be nice... mmm...

Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow  
_Potter47_

Chapter Three  
Cookie

"_You know, I rather like this whole snogging business."_

_Harry put his mouth back to Ginny's for what felt like the thousandth time in ten minutes, and he wanted nothing more than another thousand... After a moment, though, she broke the kiss and moved her lips to his cheek, to his jaw, to his neck, and kissed him lightly there..._

"_Me too," she whispered, before coming back up for another kiss on the mouth._

_They'd been sitting there by the lake for God-knew-how-long, and surely lunch would almost be over by now, they'd have to return to the school... but Harry most certainly did not want to._

_Harry tightened his grip on Ginny's back, pulling her even closer to him (which was a bit ridiculous, as they were closer than close already) and _kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss_... they're lips touching and untouching and touching over and over and over and it was the most amazing feeling in the world..._

_Then, the repeated kissing stopped, and they simply stayed just the way they were, motionless as though by prior agreement, connected at the mouth in pure euphoria. After what felt like a year and a second at the same time, Harry opened his eyes, not breaking the kiss, and saw that Ginny's eyes were open as well. _

_As their gazes met, both sets of lips quirked up as one in a two-person smile that would leave every other smile Harry would ever have feeling more than a bit lacking._

_Finally, after another euphoric eternity, they broke apart, still smiling just plain _goofy _smiles. Ginny settled down next to Harry then, rather than atop him, and he wrapped his arm round her shoulders. She tucked her head into his neck, and he rested his own on hers._

"_You're amazing, Gin," said Harry, then, and there was something in his voice that made it abundantly clear he wasn't just speaking of her snogging skills. _

"_You're more amazing," she said. Something about her tone told Harry that her eyes were closed, but he wouldn't move for the life of him to see, that would just be foolish._

_Harry closed his eyes as well and concentrated in the feel of her hair on his cheek... he tried his hardest to ignore the fact that they would have to return to the school sooner rather than later..._

_Then, after another silence—a perfect, comfy silence—words rushed forth from both their mouths as though a dam had burst in both at the very same moment:_

"_I think I love you."_

_A moment while the "you"s faded from their ears, and then both Harry and Ginny laughed a funny little laugh that neither had ever laughed before. _

"_We're crazy, it's only been a few days..." said Harry._

"_I've heard crazier things," said Ginny._

_Harry breathed in deep and smelt Ginny in the air, that sweet scent he remembered from the Burrow... he tightened his arm round her shoulder. Ginny took hold of his other hand and kissed each fingertip, one at a time, over and over while he thought of what to say next._

"_I _do _love you," he said finally. "There's no _thinking _about it, you're the most amazing person in the whole wide world..."_

"_No I'm not," said Ginny. "You're much amazing-er."_

_There was some odd quality in their speech, as though they were in a dream... _

_Then:_

"_I love you too, Harry." She folded his fingers in her hand and began kissing his knuckles softly. _

"_I have this strange feeling that this isn't going to go away," said Harry softly, quickly, as though he were worried she wouldn't understand. "Like... like this is the sort of thing that lasts forever..."_

_Ginny looked up at him, then, her eyes open and brown and bright right near his face. "I think it could be," she said, smiling at him. "I really do..."_

"_It feels so..." began Harry, and Ginny finished with him: "_right..."

_They chuckled softly again, and their eyes seemed positively magnetised, gazes stuck to each other stronger than a Permanent Sticking Charm..._

_Harry leaned down and Ginny leaned up and they met in the middle and kissed once again, soft and light and short and yet somehow fervent and strong, and altogether amazing..._

_Then:_

"_I love you, Ginny... forever. I promise."_

_Ginny smiled the most beautiful smile in the world, and echoed the vow: "I love you too, Harry. No matter what... I promise."_

_No matter what..._

_No matter..._

_I promise..._


End file.
